Chinrest

Welcome

Don't worry, you haven't committed any major or even minor sins yet. Even if you inadvertently do so, most people here recognize the difference between a good-faith mistake and deliberate troublemaking.

No one from the Welcoming Committee has greeted you yet, so I'll just slug in one of their templates that has some useful links:

Welcome!

Hello, Chinrest, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page
• Help pages
• Tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! 

[end canned welcome]

I see you already know the part about signing your comments. I can give you a tip about starting a new thread on a talk page (user talk page or article talk page): click on the "Post a comment" link along the left margin. If you're adding something to an existing thread, it's easiest to click on the "Edit" bar to the right of the thread's heading.

As for Cheney, if you're feeling nervous about a possible addition, you can take these steps:

• Make sure it's written in NPOV fashion -- state facts, and don't include opinions unless they're attributed. (For example, you can't say something like "This disgraceful act...." but you can say "Cheney did thus-and-such, which critics, such as DNC Chair Howard Dean, called disgraceful.") See WP:NPOV.
• Cite sources. See WP:CITE.
• Include an edit summary that fairly informs other editors of the nature of the edit. See WP:ES.
• If there are points about your edit that you think call for more explanation than can be fit into the edit summary window, start a thread on Talk:Dick Cheney to explain what you've done.

Also bear in mind that, however badly you mess something up, other editors can fix it, so be bold in editing! JamesMLane t c 11:47, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

James - very cool to have this kind of support starting out here. I couldn't tell how many colons were used on this message, so I just used two - maybe not critical either way, just trying to pick up good habits at the front end of this experience. Was wondering how to activate the User Talk:Chinrest function, but it seems to have happened automatically with your return/welcome message; probably will become clearer how things fit together the further I progress on tutorial etc.- seems like my end of a phone line at this point? As far as editing of articles, I plan to lay low for a bit; I fear my inate addictive traits may overshadow more of my spare time in wikiopedia endeavors than I can afford, just trying to get to the end of the string too quickly. I'll study content material, learn the basics of "how to" ... slowly, slowly catchee monkey style for a while and then dive in as I'm able when I see a place to contribute. One question - will the response you sent with the tips highlighted remain as part of my "my talk" link so that I can reference it in a piece meal fashion? No way that I can remember all the parts and I don't often have a block of time that will allow me to pursue that much potential info, at this time. Many grats Chinrest 17:55, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Chinrest. The scheme with the colons is easy. Material without colons is flush left. One colon indents it once, two indents it twice, etc. Usually, you'll place your comment under what you're answering, and precede it by one more colon than what you're answering. As for your talk page, people generally won't remove anything from it. Material will stay there until you decide to archive it or remove it. I'm glad you find it helpful enough that you were worried about this! JamesMLane t c 21:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Another Welcome

While Wiki-formatting is easier than HTML, it is a bit weird for new users. In most web browsers, there are helpful buttons on top of the text box. For example, clicking the italic I will show an example of italic text: ''Italic text''. You will always learn something new - I just learned the <nowiki> tag. As for making changes to articles, if it is a missing or incorrect fact, I just change it. But, if there is a situation where I'm not sure about something, I will first go to the talk page (aka discussion page) for the article and mention what it is I want to do. If there are no complaints, then I do it. This also lets me think about it for a few days. The cool thing about Wikipedia is, if you are like me, you don't have to be a great writer. I do my best and others rewrite it to make more sense when I go off-topic (which is almost always). Oh, and #1 rule, sign with ~~~~. It is painful to parse through comments and have no clue who is writing what. While you are at it, edit your own homepage here. It is yours, so you can do anything you like to it. --Kainaw ^(talk) 23:22, 27 February 2006 (UTC)